1999 Conference Abstracts

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1999 Abstract: Bryant et al.

Knowledge Capture and Reuse in Geological Modeling

I.D. Bryant, P.S. Kaufman, D.S. McCormick, and
P.G. Tilke
Schlumberger-Doll Research
Old Quarry Road
Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877-4108

Abstract

Geologists have always used analogy to assist their interpretations, and until recently, this has meant that a considerable period was required for geologists to develop interpretation expertise in a new geographic region or a new field of geology. The advent of modern graphical workstations offers the opportunity for geologists to gain access to knowledge outside of their previous personal experience by accessing online geological knowledge. This knowledge, gained from previous expert interpretation of analogous outcrops or fields, is then explicitly used to rigorously constrain the interpretation of 3D geometries of depositional units or structural elements.

We illustrate our approach to knowledge capture and reuse by showing how interpretations may be stored in association with the parameters required to build 3D interpretations from well and seismic data. We show how digital images from analogous outcropping formations, cores, borehole imaging tools, and seismic horizon displays may be stored in an archive database and subsequently retrieved using an intuitive query tool. Once these interpretations have been retrieved, they may be readily compared with new data by using a common viewing environment to visualize all data types. Visual comparison of the new data with the previously interpreted data is augmented by consistency checks using associated data stored in the database. In this way, interpretation expertise may be captured and reused by less experienced interpreters to construct 3D digital hypotheses of subsurface reservoir geometries.